<!-- temp hold -->
Ivan Julian Massow (born 11 September 1967) is a British financial services entrepreneur, gay rights campaigner, and media personality. He is also a former chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He has been active in UK politics, formerly as a member of the Conservative Party and since 2016 in the Liberal Democrats.
He is Master of the Southdown and Eridge Hunt.
Early life
Massow was born Ivan Field in Brighton, East Sussex. as a boy he ended up being cared for by social services, before being adopted as a pre-teenager by John Massow.
Massow is dyslexic Massow specialised in offering financial services to gay people, and was at the forefront of the 'gay finance' sector.
Allied Dunbar and Zurich
Between 2003 and 2004 Massow was director of another financial adviser firm, this time a tied agent of the Zurich Advice Network (previously Allied Dunbar). Massow had previously campaigned against what he saw as Allied Dunbar's anti-gay underwriting practices, Massow accepted a transitional loan of £330,000 to enable office relocation and staff training. However the arrangement was short-lived and ironically ended after a dispute between Massow and Zurich over Zurich's approach to insuring the gay clients in which the firm specialised. A long £13 million legal case followed which was settled out of court. Massow defended the business model of the firm from suggestions that it would not be viable following changes to financial regulation in the UK due to start on 1 January 2013; however, it ceased trading in August 2013 when the government banned commission rendering its services obsolete. The firm informed its clients that, should they choose to remain with the company, all future trail commissions would be retained and not rebated. This action was unpopular with customers, therefore Massow agreed to sell the remaining assets under management to Clubfinance, who would continue rebating the majority of their commission.
Others
Other Massow businesses include Halos and Horns and Massows Angels.
Contemporary art
In 1999, Massow became Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He was brought in by Director Philip Dodd to increase sponsorship and patronage for the organisation. Dodd claimed that Massow was a "mass of contradictions, just like the ICA. He's a risky choice for us, but the ICA should always live dangerously."
The situation deteriorated irreparably when in January 2002 Massow wrote an article in New Statesman magazine, attacking the predominance of conceptual art in the art world. He described modern concept art as "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and "the product of over-indulged, middle-class [...], bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding". He called the ICA a "pillar of the shock establishment". He attacked Tracey Emin saying she "couldn't think her way out of a paper bag", though he admitted this comment was "a little below the belt". Massow claims he spoke out to redress the imbalance between the promotion of conceptual and more traditional art in the British art scene. including a double nude diptych by Jonathan Yeo, son of Conservative MP Tim Yeo, and a portrait by Darren Coffield of Massow in full foxhunting attire, which was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.
However Massow, along with many espousing "compassionate conservatism", was frustrated by the Party's apparent reluctance to alter its stance on gay rights issues and discrimination in general. In 2000, following John Bercow MP's resignation from the front bench and the defection of Shaun Woodward MP to Labour, Massow too left the Conservative Party to join the Labour Party, where he was welcomed by Mo Mowlam.
Massow became head of the Conservative Technology Initiative for London in 2012.
In February 2013, Massow was rejected as a parliamentary candidate for Somerton and Frome, in favour of David Warburton who was selected.
In November 2014, he became the first Conservative to declare their plan to seek the Conservative Party's candidacy to become Mayor of London at the 2016 elections. He was unsuccessful in his candidacy.
He joined the Liberal Democrats in September 2016, in protest at the Conservative Party's post-Brexit vote stance.
Media
In November 2005, Massow was the winning mentor on Channel 4's Make Me a Million.
Massow produced the film Banksy's Coming For Dinner, starring Joan Collins.
In 2013 Massow was a significant part of Derren Brown's The Great Art Robbery for Channel 4, in which Brown taught a group of old age pensioners how to get away with a robbery using various techniques such as how to stay unnoticed as well as controlling fear and nerves. The OAPs then embarked on a large-scale robbery, which involved stealing an expensive painting from Massow. The show first aired on 13 December 2013.
In 2016 Massow featured in the Channel 4 documentary "Rich Brother, Poor Brother" along with his estranged younger brother David. The documentary contrasted Ivan's millionaire London lifestyle with that of David, a bohemian labourer who lives in a converted truck near Glastonbury.
Charity work
Massow Financial Services was the first mainstream business to sponsor London's Gay Pride in 1990 which it continued to do in subsequent years.
In March 2010, in partnership with Oxfam and Beat That Quote, Massow developed Compare for Good, a charity fundraising price comparison website which promised to pay more than two-thirds of the money raised by the site to Oxfam. In March 2011 Beat That Quote was sold to Google.
Personal life
Massow is gay.